The
Michigan Theatre celebrated its 54th anniversary with tributes to the
past, present and future. On Friday, January 8, afternoon entertainment included
the movie Love
Me Tonight (1932), a newsreel from 1932, and a Rupert Otto organ
concert. "Friday Night at the Movies" featured Broken
Lullaby and Chandu
the Magician (both 1932).

Also
on Friday evening, a national preservation plaque for the Michigan was
unveiled, with a speech by William Murtaugh of the National Trust for
Historic Preservation. On Saturday, January 9, "Ann Arbor's own"
Judith Dow sang Broadway and patriotic music with the Ann Arbor Chamber
Orchestra. On Sunday, January 10, Michigan visitors looked to the future
with electronic music from organist John Lauter, locally produced films,
and a movie on "Ann Arbor and the Space Age".

The
new Detroit Film Theatre season opened on January 15-17 with Cutter's
Way (1981), part of the theater's Festival of New Masterworks.
On January 22-24, DFT fans took a break from Super Bowl XVI excitement in
Pontiac to see Louis Malle's My
Dinner with Andre. The afternoon film program of the Detroit Institute
of Arts saluted Ernst Lubitsch with Lady
Windermere's Fan (1925), Monte
Carlo (1930), and Design
for Living (1933).

On
January 29-31 at the DFT, Andrzej Wajda's Man
of Iron (1981) showed the rise of the Solidarity labor movement
in Poland, but ironically appeared one month after martial
law was declared in Poland. "Maybe viewers who saw the film earlier
last year saw the jubilant workers and rejoiced with them," wrote
Detroit Free Press Editorial Writer Jeanne Moore on January 29, 1982.
"But there's no way you can see it now, in light of last month's
repression, without hearing the government's message: we don't share power."

Man
of Iron was a sequel to Man
of Marble (1977), which opened at the Maple Theatre on January 15.
Part of the proceeds from Man of Marble went to the Polish American
Congress for food and medical supplies for Poland, according to the January
8, 1982 Detroit Free Press. Man of Marble kicked off "the
Maple's drive to establish itself as Detroit's commercial outlet for special
interest films," noted the Free Press.

Creatures
of very different sizes visited the Redford. On January 8-9, patrons who
had recently enjoyed the modern adventure Raiders of the Lost Ark
thrilled to the pounding excitement of the original 1933 King
Kong. Jeanette MacDonald took a break from her singing partnership
with Nelson Eddy to star with Allan Jones in The
Firefly (1937), at the Redford on January 22-23. In 1936, Jones appeared
in Show Boat, The Great Ziegfield, and the MacDonald/Eddy
musical Rose-Marie.